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San Diego

Partway down the central escalator at the San Diego Convention center, you can look down the long cylindrical skylight that makes up the roof of the lobby, rings forming the appearance of concentric circles. Years ago, a friend of mine referred to it as the Death Star Cannon shot, and it’s a popular one to take, both during Comic Con and at other events.

At this year’s Comic-Con International, I found myself looking at the windows surrounding the stairs instead. My first thought was to mix things up with the classic cannon shot, but when I got home and looked at the results, I realized: This really does resemble the windows in the Emperor’s throne room. It’s still a Death Star shot, but a different part of the station!

If you’d like to see more photos or read more about my experience at the convention, check out I Survived Comic-Con 2013 at K-Squared Ramblings.

Downtown San Diego’s nighttime skyline, seen from Harbor Island across the bay to the west. You can see the light trails from a couple of boats. The yellowish sky is the reflection of street lights on low-lying clouds. I have a wider shot that shows how much darker the sky is away from the city.

This was taken during last year’s Comic-Con. I figured I’d post it this week because the first round of hotel rooms go on sale this Wednesday. These are non-refundable, outside of downtown, and in some cases specific packages with minimum stays, but if you already have tickets and want to avoid the “Hoteloween” rush when the rest of the rooms go on sale, it might be worth taking a look.

Hotels went on sale for Comic-Con International this week. I sat things out this year, since we’re only making a day trip. Naturally, everyone I know who was trying to get a room ended up with the smoothest experience in more than five years, rather than the crashes, timeouts, frustration that we’ve come to expect.

In case you didn’t make it through, or if you decide to just chuck it all and do something else, here’s a link to some ideas on how you can still get a hotel in San Diego.

Comic-Con International sold out this weekend. The convention isn’t until July, which makes the January sell-out surprising enough…but tickets didn’t even go on sale until this past Saturday, and were all gone by the end of the day!

In past years, tickets haven’t been a problem. This year, they’ve become as hard to get as convention-rate hotel rooms. And those? The con hasn’t even announced when they’re going on sale.

This is the view from one of the escalators in the San Diego Convention Center lobby. One of my friends once referred to it as the “Death Star Cannon” view, inspired by the shot of the inside of the cannon firing near the end of Star Wars.

If you got your ticket to San Diego this year, I’d recommend you check out one of these handy guides I’ve put together:

Eventually, this will connect the Hilton Bayfront parking structure with the Petco Park parking lot. It’s not exactly an ideal spot for the convention — they really need a bridge near 5th Street — but it should help a little when it’s completed.

Over the weekend I attended Comic Con International in San Diego. It was fun and exhausting as always. I’ve posted over 150 photos of people, costumes, displays and sightseeing on Flickr. If you’re interested in write-ups of events, stories, quotes and such, I’m keeping an index of all my posts over at K-Squared Ramblings and Speed Force.